Category Archives: War On Drugs

A top Philippine official is to face questioning next week at the U.N. Human Rights Council on issues such as extrajudicial killings and vigilante justice alleged to be occurring in President Rodrigo Dutertes deadly fight against illegal drugs.

The Philippines is one of 14 countries whose records are being examined in the latest session of the Universal Periodic Review, which examines issues in all 193 U.N. member states. Britain is on tap Thursday, and the Philippines anti-drug campaign and moves to restore the death penalty are among the issues set for discussion Monday.

Menardo Guevarra, a senior deputy executive secretary in Dutertes office, is leading the delegation. Also participating is senator and staunch Duterte supporter Alan Peter Cayetano, who told reporters our strategy is simple: The facts being said about the campaign against drugs are wrong.

HRW: Denounce war on drugs

Human Rights Watch on Thursday called on the U.N. to denounce the Philippines war on drugs that it said has left more than 7,000 suspected drug dealers and users dead since Duterte took office June 30 and to urge the country to support an international investigation into the killings.

The U.N. review of the Philippines is critical because of the sheer magnitude of the human rights calamity since President Duterte took office last year, said Phelim Kine, Human Rights Watchs deputy Asia director. Dutertes war on drugs has been nothing less than a murderous war on the poor.

Amnesty International Philippines says the review should highlight persisting problems, including the high number of extrajudicial executions and moves to reinstate the death penalty.

Government data

The government is also releasing new data in an attempt to refute death tolls ranging from more than 7,000 to 9,000 cited by human rights groups and the media that were based on previous numbers released by police.

The presidential palace, the Philippine National Police and other government agencies said Tuesday nearly 4,600 people have been killed in drug-related crime since July 1 and more than 1.2 million drug suspects have surrendered.

The government said more than 2,700 suspected drug dealers and users had been killed in police operations and 1,847 homicides had been investigated and found to be drug-related.

Police said 19.6 percent of the countrys 9,432 recorded homicides from July 1 to March 31 were drug-related. About 20 percent of homicides were unrelated to drugs, while the rest are still under investigation.

The higher figures released by police earlier and cited by media and human rights groups included deaths still under investigation, which officials now clarify were not all drug-related.

The fact that the new PNP figures are inconsistent with the numbers released by the media or human rights organizations on extrajudicial executions, or even their own previous numbers, means that there may be more unreported cases, not less, said Amnesty International Philippines head Ritz Lee Santos, III.

He said the police should send a clear message that the state-sponsored unlawful killings of alleged offenders are never justified and are equivalent to extrajudicial executions which they should vow to end.

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Philippine Officials Face UN Questions on War on Drugs - Voice of America

An advocacy group says a move at the Drug Enforcement Administration to hire prosecutors is another signal of how the Justice Department is changing under Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Spencer Platt/Getty Images hide caption

An advocacy group says a move at the Drug Enforcement Administration to hire prosecutors is another signal of how the Justice Department is changing under Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

The Drug Enforcement Administration has proposed hiring its own prosecutor corps to bring cases related to drug trafficking, money laundering and asset forfeiture a move that advocacy groups warn could exceed the DEA's legal authority and reinvigorate the 1980s-era war on drugs.

Citing the epidemic in opioid-related overdoses, the DEA said it wants to hire as many as 20 prosecutors to enhance its resources and target the biggest offenders. The DEA said the new force of lawyers "would be permitted to represent the United States in criminal and civil proceedings before the courts and apply for various legal orders." The agency would use money it gets from companies that manufacture and dispense certain kinds of prescription drugs under the federal Controlled Substances Act.

The agency's proposal, published in the federal register in March, received little if any public attention. But it would represent the first time the DEA had its own, dedicated prosecutors to go after drug-related offenses. Those lawyers would be shared or "detailed" to U.S. attorney's offices and the main Justice Department, after an assessment of which regions needed the most help.

In an interview, DEA spokesman Rusty Payne described the plan as an outgrowth of the destruction that opioids have wreaked.

"We're losing 90 people a day to opioids and about 140 a day to drugs altogether," Payne said. "It's pretty clear we've got to use the tools we have at our disposal to attack this. We've got to hold accountable the people who are facilitating addiction and heartache."

The idea worries the Drug Policy Alliance, which lobbies for a public health approach to drugs. The Alliance argues that the plan "exceeds DEA's authority under federal law" because the prosecutorial arm of the Justice Department can't be funded through the drug diversion registration program without input from Capitol Hill.

"In this notice, the DEA effectively proposes a power grab and is trying to end-run the congressional appropriations process," said Michael Collins, deputy director at the Drug Policy Alliance.

Collins said the special account at DEA is intended to keep prescription drugs safe and available to patients who need them, not to pay for prosecutors to target drug offenders. He said the rule is yet another warning signal that the Justice Department is shifting its approach to drug criminals under new Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Sessions, who was a U.S. attorney in Alabama in the 1980s, frequently decries the danger from drugs and gangs and uses rhetoric with echoes from the height of the cocaine epidemic.

"If the Sessions DOJ wants to abandon criminal justice reform, and escalate the war on drugs, that conversation should happen above board and in public; not in some arcane rulemaking document that very few people read or understand," Collins added.

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Drug Enforcement Administration Wants To Hire Its Own Prosecutors ... - NPR

MANILA - The passage of the mental health law will help increase funds for the drug rehabilitation aspect of the government's intensified campaign against illegal drugs, Health Secretary Paulyn Jean Ubial said Tuesday.

"With the passage of the law, we believe there will be better prioritization, budget allocation, and support for the war on drugs and rehabilitation," Ubial told reporters.

The Senate unanimously passed the Mental Health Law on third and final reading Tuesday to make mental health services more affordable and accessible to Filipinos.

A counterpart law in the House of Representatives is expected to follow soon.

Ubial has been consistent about labeling drug dependence and addiction as a form of mental illness.

Currently, government runs 17 out of the total 48 rehabilitation facilities across the country. The rest are private institutions.

Ubial said more rehabilitation centers and other mental health infrastructure may be funded with the law in place.

"We hope to have a systematic assessment and production of our mental heath workers particularly psychiatrists and psychologists," she said.

As of April 2017, 1.26 million drug users and peddlers have voluntarily surrendered to authorities amid the government's crackdown on illegal drugs.

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Ubial: Mental health law to aid govt's war on drugs | ABS-CBN News - ABS-CBN News

The history of the US's "War on Drugs" goes much farther back than Jeff Sessions or even Ronald Reagan. But it looks like Sessions may be going the same conservative, racist route of his predecessors when it comes to drug policy. (Image: DonkeyHotey)BILL BERKOWITZ FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

"On the Media's" Bob Garfield recently reported that Attorney General Jeff Sessions "signaled his eagerness to rejoin the nation's old-school-style War on Drugs, by hiring a former beat cop, turned federal prosecutor, Stephen H. Cook," who last year, at a criminal justice panel at The Washington Post, maintained that "The federal criminal justice system simply is not broken. In fact, it's working exactly as designed."

In his 2015 book, Chasing the Scream; TheFirst and Last Days of the War on Drugs, British writer and journalist JohannHari dived deeply into the origins of America's War on Drugs, a story that dates back more than a century ago, beginning with the Harrison Act in 1914 -- which banned cocaine and heroin -- and whose origins were steeped in racism: "The main reason given for banning drugs -- the reason obsessing the men who launched this war -- was that the Blacks, Mexicans, and Chinese were using these chemicals, forgetting their place, and menacing white people."

In 1931, the relatively unknown Harry Anslinger, who had been appointed the head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics a year earlier, amped up his profile by ordering raids on doctors -- previously exempt from the Harrison Act -- which ultimately put an end to the legal prescription of drugs to addicts in the US. At the time Anslinger took office, Hari writes, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics was "a tiny agency, buried in the gray bowels of the Treasury Department in Washington, D.C.," and may have been on the brink of extinction.

Essentially Anslinger's animus in enforcing anti-drug laws resulted in a thriving illicit drug industry, a concomitant growth in drug entrepreneurs/organized crime, street crime by committed by addicts, massive arrests -- mostly of small-time users -- and imprisonment. Hari pointed out that: "Before drugs were criminalized, the most popular way to consume opiates was through very mild opiate teas, syrups and winesBut within a few years of the introduction of prohibition, these milder forms of the drug had vanished. They were too bulky to smuggleThat's when coca tea was replaced by powder cocaine, and Mrs Winslow's Soothing Syrup was replaced by injectable heroin."

The Case of Billie Holiday

Billie Holiday (nee Eleanora Fagan), was a legendary great jazz and blues singer, who had enough personal difficulties of her own to deal with. Hari argues that when she died in July 1959, it was a result of being hounded by Anslinger's agents, and denied treatment for cirrhosis of the liver by racist anti-drug US government officials.

Hari chose to open Chasing the Scream with a story about how Holiday was targeted for persecution by Anslinger. "Jazz was the opposite of everything Harry Anslinger believed in," Hari writes. "It is improvised, relaxed, free-form. It follows its own rhythm. Worst of all, it is a mongrel music made up of European, Caribbean and African echoes, all mating on American shores. To Anslinger, this was musical anarchy and evidence of a recurrence of the primitive impulses that lurk in black people, waiting to emerge. 'It sounded,' his internal memos said, 'like the jungles in the dead of night.' Another memo warned that 'unbelievably ancient indecent rites of the East Indies are resurrected' in this black man's music. The lives of the jazzmen, he said, 'reek of filth.'"

For Anslinger, marijuana was "why jazz music sounded so freakish." Anslinger particularly hated popular jazz musicians like Charlie Parker, Louis Armstrong and Thelonious Monk, and he wanted to see them all jailed. He instructed his agents: "Please prepare all cases in your jurisdiction involving musicians in violation of the marijuana laws. We will have a great national round-up arrest of all such persons on a single day. I will let you know what day." His advised his drug-raiding men to "Shoot first."

In an interview with Naomi Klein on Democracy Now, Hari explained how the government hounded Holiday, in part because she was a drug addict, and in part because she had the audacity to publicly sing the powerful anti-lynching song "Strange Fruit." A Jewish schoolteacher, Abel Meeropol, who was writing under the name Lewis Allan, wrote the song. (Meeropol would later adopt Robert and Michael Rosenberg, the sons of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg who were executed after being convicted of being Communist spies.)

Hari told Klein that Holiday's goddaughter, Lorraine Feather, told him: "You've got to understand how shocking it was to have an African-American woman singing a song against" -- she wasn't allowed to walk through the front door of that hotel. She had to go through the service elevator. So to stand up in front of a white audience and do that was pretty -- a time when almost all popular songs were like "P.S. I Love You," right? And that night she was told, according to her biographer, Julia Blackburn, by the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 'Stop singing this song.' Right? The Federal Bureau of Narcotics was run by a crazy racist called Harry Anslinger, a man who was regarded as a crazy racist by the crazy racists at the time. . And she basically said, "Screw you, I'm going to sing my song."

According to Hari, Holiday's singing of "Strange Fruit" set off Anslinger. He had agents stalk her, she's arrested, sent to prison, and when she's released, she has her license to perform -- needed where alcohol was served -- revoked.

Hari: "And Billie Holiday sinks back into addiction. She collapses when she's in her early forties. She's taken to hospital in New York, and she says to one of her friends that the agents aren't -- Anslinger's men aren't finished with her. She says, 'They're going to kill me in there. Don't let them. They're going to kill me.' They handcuff her to the bed. [S]he was diagnosed with liver cancer. They knew that. I interviewed the last surviving guy who was in that room. They handcuffed her to the bed. They didn't let any of her friends in to see her. They took away her record player and her candies. One of her friends manages -- she went into withdrawal. One of her friends managed to get her prescribed methadone, and she started to recover. And 10 days later, they cut off the methadone, and she died."

"Harry Anslinger was a kind of genius at conducting the fears and anxieties of his time through drugs," Hari told Klein. "But the history of the war on drugs, if you think about it in the long arc of human history, it belongs in the story of symbolic wars, where we go to war against -- we try to embody one of our fears in an object and go to war against it, like the Crusades or the witchcraft crazes."

And now we've got Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who recently declared: "We have too much of a tolerance for drug use. Psychologically, politically, morally. We need to say as Nancy Reagan said, "Just say no." Don't do it."

Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper came out of a recent meeting with Sessions in Washington, D.C, and he told "The Cannabist" "that the former Alabama senator seemed unlikely to crack the whip on states that have legalized marijuana in some capacity," despite the fact that Sessions is vehemently opposed to legalizing marijuana, Newsweek reported.

"Under the Cole memorandum, which was introduced in 2013, marijuana consumers, producers and businesses in legal states are safe from federal prosecution as long as they're in compliance with state cannabis laws," Newsweek's Janice Williams reported. "During a press conference in March, Sessions acknowledged that the rulewas valid but said he was considering implementing some of his own ideas within the law.

"The Cole memorandum set up some policies under President Obama's Department of Justice about how cases should be selected in those states and what would be appropriate for federal prosecution, much of which I think is valid," Sessions said. "I may have some different ideas myself in addition to that, but essentially we're not able to go into a state and pick up the work that the police and sheriffs have been doing for decades," he said at the time.

How long Sessions, Kelly, and Cook -- all vigorous opponents of marijuana use -- will stick by that dictum remains to be seen.

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Drug Wars 4.0: From Anslinger to Nixon to Reagan to Trump and Sessions - Truth-Out

COTABATO CITYTwo children were among the latest collateral damage in the governments campaign to rid the country of illegal drugs.

The children, a 5-year-old and an infant, their mother, and a drug suspect were killed after a group of suspected illegal drug traders engaged lawmen in a shootout in Rajah Buayan town in Maguindanao province on Tuesday afternoon.

SPO2 Mohammad Ampatuan of the Rajah Buayan police said the subjects of several search warrants opened fire and lobbed grenades at government forces, who were conducting an antidrug operation in Barangay Panadtaban.

The shootout killed Normin Tantong and her two children. Also killed was one of the suspected drug pushers, who police had yet to identify.

Ampatuan said the two other subjects of the search warrants escaped, although they were wounded in the firefight.

Rajah Buayan Mayor Zamzamin Ampatuan said the village of Panadtaban had been known as a trading area for illegal drugs.

Mayor Ampatuan said he was sad the suspects did not think about the safety of their relatives in the house when they fired at government forces.

He said information he received showed that trading of prohibited drugs in the village was allegedly protected by the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters.

The antidrug operation in Maguindanao had been intensified since the start of the year and had netted several suspects, including elected officials.

On March 30, Councilor Daud Rakim Guiama of Datu Anggal Midtimbang town was arrested when authorities found him inside the lair of suspected drug pushers Zainudin Musa, Bukatol Maliga alias Castro, and Katidia Paglas in Barangay Mapayag, Datu Anggal Midtimbang.

Guiamas arrest came two days after a Maguindanao village councilorwho had been under surveillance by antinarcotics operatives for peddling and using prohibited drugswas nabbed in Datu Odin Sinsuat town.

Chief Insp. Achmad Alibonga, police chief of Datu Odin Sinsuat, said Razul Diocolano Imam, 29, a councilor of Barangay Banobo in Sultan Kudarat town, had not resisted arrest when Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) operatives raided his house in Barangay Awang, Datu Odin Sinsuat.

Alibonga said a sachet of shabu (methamphetamine hydrochloride), with a market value of P20,000, and marked money were seized from Imam.

On Feb. 23, PDEA agents also arrested Rajah Buayan Councilor Dennis Sandigan Utto, who reportedly operated a drug ring that distributed illegal drugs in Maguindanao.

Uttos arrest came after Fatima Daud Baliwan, a village chair in Kabuntalan town and the top suspect in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, was nabbed by government troops.

Baliwan, wife of former Kabuntalan Mayor Muslim Usman Baliwan, was arrested along with her son and two others in Cotabato City, during which they also yielded several sachets of shabu, firearms and credit cards.

President Duterte had said Maguindanao was among provinces where narcopoliticians operated unchecked in the past.

Shortly after being elected President last year, Mr. Duterte named Ampatuan Mayor Rasul Sangki; Datu Saudi Mayor Samsudin Dimaukom and his wife, Vice Mayor Anida; Talitay Mayor Montassir Sabal and his brother, Vice Mayor Abdulwahab; and Datu Salibo Mayor Norodin Salasal, as among the provinces biggest drug personalities.

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War on drugs claims 2 kids - Inquirer.net

Trumps war on drugs Dear Editor, Will the Trump administration screw Milpitas residents who use cannabis for medical or recreational reasons? They will likely try! Trumps cabinet is a bunch of billionaires with corrupting corporate ties (http://corporatecabinet.org/). Corporations (like Big Pharma and Big Ad) dont like the competition from pot and hemp. So, they bought themselves a Republican administration including an Attorney General (Jeff Sessions) who, according to the Washington Post, appears to be planning what amounts to a return to a 1980s-style War on Drugs. Polls indicate that 60 percent of Americans favor full legalization, while 90 percent say people ought to be able to get it if their doctors prescribe it. That is a democratic threat to corporate interests, so Jeff aint interested. To resist the corporate flunkies in the Trump administration, join a group fighting back local Democratic Clubs, Indivisible, Swing Left and other citizen-based groups working for a better America. Rob Means Milpitas resident

Open the gates Dear Editor, I am writing to encourage our city leaders and Recreation Department to unlock the sports fields at the Milpitas Sports Center. After observing the field renovation for several months, I was shocked to learn that, when the field reopened, the gates would be locked. This facility had been used by walkers and runners for years. Now it is available to organized groups by prearrangement only. This is a reduction in service to the people of Milpitas. The reasoning behind the restricted use is that the new artificial surfaces might be vandalized. Well yes, its true, any building or park might be vandalized, but that doesnt warrant closing the area off to all citizens of the community. What are our parks and athletic facilities for if not to encourage families and individuals to be active, relax and enjoy the outdoors? I urge our City Council members and city staff to take a new look at this issue and consider what is right for the people of Milpitas. Austa Falconer Milpitas resident

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Milpitas letters: War on drugs, Open the gates - Milpitas Post

My heart is with the family of McKenzie Elliott as this wound is reopened in the healing process ("Man charged in 2014 killing of 3-year-old McKenzie Elliott," April 26). The only thing more heartbreaking than her death is our attachment to a failed policy which breeds the violence which took her life and so many others. Sadly, McKenzie's death can be traced back to the "War on Drugs." The man who killed her should most certainly be held accountable, and I applaud those in law enforcement who worked so persistently to bring him to justice. However, removing one gang member from the streets isn't going to stop gang-related violence. This "whack-a-mole" strategy has failed since the moment it began in the early 1970s, and, as someone who spent a career with the Baltimore Police Department, I find it totally unproductive.

The drug war has not improved public safety. It has not reduced illicit drug overdoses. It has not dismantled criminal organizations. In fact, the opposite is true.

Regulating drugs from a public health perspective nationwide and improving drug treatment access will reduce crime and violence, weaken gangs and reduce death, disease and addiction. Other countries like Switzerland and Portugal are leading the way. The longer we wait to implement common sense measures like fully funding treatment on demand, the more tragedy we're going to be confronted with.

Mike Hilliard, Baltimore

The writer is a retired Baltimore police major.

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War on drugs was costly for McKenzie Elliott - Baltimore Sun

During his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, Donald Trump boasted that I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldnt lose voters. On the 100th day of his presidency, Trump invited Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte,who has said that he used to roam the streets on a motorcycle looking for criminals to kill, to the White House.

A Duterte state visit to Washington or Mar-a-Lago would be a ghastly spectacle, given the way the Philippines have pursued a war on drugs even more literal than the one in the United States, leaving thousands dead. While Trump bloviates about American carnage, the Duterte regime produces its own bloodbath. Trumps courtship of a man who shares his taste in crude, violent political rhetoric might have been marginally motivated by the American administrations concerns about North Korea, as White House chief of staff Reince Priebus has claimed. But the substance of the leaders conversation is a reminder of thedark and now international glamour of the war on drugs, and the dreadful consequences of that fascination.

Trump and Duterte are hardly the first two people to have discovered the macho power ofharsh talk about crime, specificallydrug-related crime. Bill Bennett, who ran President George H.W. BushsOffice of National Drug Control Policy, imaginedtaking a page from Saudi Arabia and beheading drug dealers publicly, though Im willing to grant Bennett the courtesy of imagining he intended for those executions to take place after trials, rather than on an ad hoc basis like the killings taking place under Duterte.

Bennetts fantasies about executing drug dealers echoed widespread sentiments in popular culture. As I wrote last year, the entertainment industry, despite its supposed liberalism,was quick to embrace drug traffickers as the industrys villains of choice during the rise of the blockbuster era. These fictional bad guys wereconvenient for an industry eager to ratchet up splashy, cinematically exciting violence: They had access to serious weaponry and were perfectly willing to inflict extreme damage, from crashing trains to torturing cops families, to move their product. Their determination and utter amorality in turn meant that fictional cops were justified in shooting, and sometimes killing, these fearsome adversaries. If drug criminals wouldnt be taken alive, what could pop culture ask decent people who wanted to protect their communities to do?

Trumps declarations that Mexicans are bringing drugs. Theyre bringing crime. Theyre rapists, and his repeated invocations of bad hombres and American carnage in cities across the country, are the references of a man who for decades has taken inflammatory and irresponsible positions on crime to his own political benefit. Now, he has the ability to actually implement some of his tough talk. Trumps attorney general, Jeff Sessions, intends to reinvigorate the American war on drugs. And for all major Hollywood figures did to oppose Trumps election, this is essentially a line the movie and television industries have also advanced for decades: that drug criminals are supervillainous threats to American cities who can be clearly identified and need to be executed without trial.

Of course, neither the American war on drugs initiated by President Richard Nixon, nor the massacres set off by Duterte in the Philippines, look much like Hollywood extravaganzas. In the United States, it more often looks like peoplefrightened, injured or even killed in no-knock raids, people arrested on possession charges who languish in jail because they cant afford bailor lose access to the financial aid that makes higher education possible, and voter disenfranchisement. In the Philippines, the drug war means people lying shot dead in the street as the rain beats down on their bodies or struggling to rest in heinously overcrowded jails, depicted in shattering photos taken by the New York Times Daniel Berehulak.

Trumps defense of his invitation to Duterte was similar to the rationale thats kept Hollywood fighting the drug war decade after decade: Theyre bothpopular. Of course, Trump has never had to live with any of the consequences of his demagoguery, whether hesdemonizing the Central Park Five long after their exonerationor talking recklessly about jailing his opponents. Trump may have been touched by the gassing of Syrian children, but the ongoing slaughter of Filipinos seems like an abstraction to him, easily disguised with talk of toughness.

This is the thing about living in an era defined by a president who treats the world like a show hes producing, rather than a fragile thing for which he bears a fearsome responsibility. You cant stage the fictions of your imagination in the real world without exacting terrible costs, even if other people end up paying them. Rodrigo Duterte isnt an action hero; hes a monster. And whether Trump understands it or not, his actions could make him one, too.

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The Trump-Duterte bromance, and the ghastly realities of wars on drugs - Washington Post

THE public approval of the Duterte administrations raging war on drugs is likely to continue to nosedive if the National Police fails to correct reported police abuses in waging the campaign against illegal-drugs syndicates, Sen. Sherwin T. Gatchalian warned on Tuesday.

Gatchalian cited the failure of National Police chief Director General Ronald M. dela Rosa to keep his officers in check, even as he prodded him to promptly launch an inquiry into the charges against erring police officers.

He lamented what he described as an endless string of public scandals concerning the questionable methods employed by police officers in waging the fight against illegal drugs is starting to take its toll on the credibility of the National Police.

Gatchalian voiced concern that public trust in the [police] institution is fast declining, and the people are losing their faith in police officers.

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In a statement, Gatchalian said the March 2017 Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey indicating an 11-percent drop in public satisfaction in the Duterte administrations war on drugs. He noted that 73 percent of the respondents voiced fears about being wrongly targeted and becoming victims of extrajudicial killings, while 44 percent did not believe police claims that slain suspects fought back during operations.

Gatchalian also cited televised reports last week on a discovery by a team from the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) that found 12 men and women, alleged to be drug offenders, illegally detained inside a secret lock-up cell hidden behind a bookshelf at the WPD Police Station 1 in Tondo, Manila.

He recalled reports some of the detainees claimed the police were extorting money from the suspects, ranging from P30,000 to P100,000, in exchange for their freedom, while other detainees complained they were beaten up by jailers.

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Gatchalian warns police could lose war on drugs - Business Mirror

The good news is that even though Connor Barwin is no longer an Eagle, the annual charity concerts the now-Los Angeles Ram defensive end has put on to benefit Philadelphia playgrounds through his Make the World Better foundation will continue.

The cool development is that this years show will mark the return of the War on Drugs, the Philadelphia five-piece band led by Adam Granduciel that stepped up to top-tier rock status withits acclaimed 2014 album, Lost in the Dream. Last weekend, the band released their first new music since signing to Atlantic Records with a shimmery, immersive 11-minute vinyl-only song called Thinking of a Place.

But maybe the best news for the city and its music scene is this: The Make the World Better benefit for Barwin on Sept. 21 will be the opening date of the War on Drugs' world tour, and it will take place at the Dell Music Center, the storied amphitheater that recently underwent a nearly $7 million renovation. Tickets go on sale via Ticketmaster at 10 a.m. Friday.

The Dell was built in 1930. Along with hosting such luminaries as Mahalia Jackson, Count Basie, and Ray Charles, it served as the summer home of the Philadelphia Orchestra until the space now known as the Mann Center for the Performing Arts opened in 1976 across the river in Fairmount Park.

For decades now, the Dell -- originally known as the Robin Hood Dell, named after a tavern close to the nearby Laurel Hill Cemetery -- has been home to an R&B and soul summer concert series that serves Philadelphias African American community. That is not about to change, with an eight-show season that this year begins July 6.

Its always going to be a venue that offers R&B and gospel, says Susan Slawson, the former head of the citys Parks and Recreation Department who now volunteers with the Dell. Were not going to neglect that. But we want to open up the venue. We want rock bands; we want country bands. We want people to realize that this is a safe, beautiful venue that people from all over Philadelphia can come to.

Enter Barwin, and his boundless enthusiasm. Barwins three benefit concerts at Union Transfer, starting in 2014 with his good friend Kurt Vile, have raised in the neighborhood of $750,000. Thats if you count the at-least-half donated out of Barwins own pocket, says R5 Productions' Sean Agnew, who co-owns Union Transfer. The shows have funded work at the Ralph J. Brooks and Smith Playgrounds in South Philly, as well as the Waterloo in West Kensington. This years recipient will be announced at the War on Drugs show.

I took a tour with Parks and Rec about three years ago, says Barwin, 30, talking on the phone from Los Angeles. And I was like, man! We raise money for Parks and Rec. Parks and Rec has this incredible amphitheater up in Strawberry Mansion that nobody knows about. Thats when I fell in love with the Dell and thought it would be a perfect place to have a show, on so many levels. It makes so much sense for everybody, for the city and for the bands.

Barwin was in the midst of a busy week. The Detroit-born music geek's current favorites include Kendrick Lamars DAMN., Father John Mistys Pure Comedy, and Future Islands The Far Field-- the first two of which he saw at this month's Coachella Festival.

Full disclosure, that was kind of like my bachelor party this year, he says. Barwin will marry longtime girlfriend Laura Buscher, a physicians assistant at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in West Philadelphia, in Upstate New York this weekend.

What Barwin didnt know when he got smitten by the Dell is that Agnew and his partners at Bowery Presents had already met with then-Mayor Michael Nutter about bringing concerts to the venue.

Traditionally, the venue has been programmed for black Philadelphia, says Agnew. Which is pretty unique and very valuable. But its dark most days in the summer.

R5 came close to booking sizable indie acts, like Neutral Milk Hotel and Animal Collective, but wound up with a series of just-misses. No one had ever heard of the venue, and booking agents' first question was, Who else has played there?

Thats where the War on Drugs comes in. Ami Spishock, the bands manager since 2010, grew up in Downingtown. But she had never heard of the Dell.

Barwin was ready to fix that. Spishock, who lives in New York, came to see Beirut, another band she manages, at the Tower Theater in Upper Darby in 2015.

Connor came and picked me up at the Tower and drove me to the Dell. It was closed and locked and dark, and we were peering in through the locked gate."

He got the desired result, however. I was totally inspired, she says. The other thing that happened that night was he took me to a couple of playgrounds in the city. The inner-city kids were playing basketball under the lights, and everybody was thanking him and ribbing about how he was playing that year. You see that, and youve got to want to help him in that effort. I didnt hesitate.

Slawson refers to the War on Drugs as this wonderful group and Barwin as like your brother. He's the kind of person whos comfortable in whatever neighborhood you put him in, and he really wants to make a difference. She and Agnew hope the War on Drugs' example will lead toothers playing the venue, and a diversified lineup in 2018.

The Dell's larger capacity will allow Make the World Better to raise more than at the 1,200-capacity Union Transfer. Barwin is bummed that hell have to miss the show, though: Usually, his shows are in the football offseason, but this one needs to fit into the War on Drugs' tour cycle, which most likely will follow the release of the follow-up to Dream.

I didn't know I wasn't going to be playing for the Eagles," he said. "It would have been perfect if I was. Its the Thursday before the first home game. All of my teammates would have been there. But although Barwin is now a Ram -- and reunited with defensive coordinator Wade Phillips, with whom he thrived with the Houston Texans early in his career -- he has no plans to cut ties to Philadelphia. Last week, he was looking for a place to live in L.A., and, having sold his Center City house, looking to buy another one in Philadelphia. My wife loves it. Its a place were always going to have roots, he says.

While in L.A. on a one-year contract, hell get to know the local community, with an eye to expand Make the World Better, and then if I re-sign, Ill be ready to roll. In any case, we want [Make the World Better] eventually to be an organization that helps cities and parks and rec departments throughout the country. But can he also maintain the level of involvement in the Philadelphia community thats made him so popular and already so missed? The plan is to do everything were doing in Philly and do more, he says.

Does that mean that after this years concert with the War on Drugs, there will definitely be more Make the World Better benefits?

He answers with a question: Are there more playgrounds to be fixed?

The War on Drugs -- Thinking of a Place from Record Store Day on Vimeo.

Published: April 28, 2017 10:15 AM EDT

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